IHOP Owner Gets Pancaked by Obamacare

The five-year anniversary of the president signing Obamacare is an unhappy one for many businesses.

Take Scott Womack. In 2011, he testified for the U.S. Chamber about the costly burdens Obamacare had on his 12-store IHOP franchise in Ohio and Indiana:

“For restaurants, providing qualifying coverage to all full time employees is a huge new expense,” says Womack, a 25-year restaurant veteran and the owner and president of Womack Restaurants, a 12-unit IHOP franchise in Indiana and Ohio. Womack testified on behalf of the U.S. Chamber before the House Ways and Means Committee on January 26.

Womack estimates it would cost him $7,000 per full time employee to provide health care coverage. “This new expense is beyond our ability to pay. I estimate the cost to my company to be 50% greater than our company’s earnings. Let me state this bluntly: this law will cost my company more money than we make,” Womack told the committee.

With restaurants unable to raise prices in a weak economy, Womack says his only alternatives are to cut costs, cut staff, reduce employees’ hours and transition full time workers into part-time status, or pay the $2,000 per employee penalty for not providing coverage. “For my company, these penalties amount to 60% of our earnings,” Womack estimates.

He warned Congressmen that unless major changes were made to the law, futures plans to invest in new restaurants would be off the table.

Sadly, what happened was more dramatic than he predicted.

Robert Bluey, reporting for the Daily Signal, found that Womack no longer owned those IHOP restaurants; Obamacare’s impending employer mandate, along with other factors, forced him to sell them in 2014:

“We had to keep evaluating the nature of the business and the impact of Obamacare along with all the other pressures on labor,” Womack told me. He cited actions by the National Labor Relations Board and the threat of a minimum-wage hike as other challenges.

Womack said he was able to weather the recession. He remained hopeful Congress would make changes to the law or the 2012 election would usher in a president who would repeal it.

When that didn’t happen, he simply wasn’t confident about the long-term prospects of running a casual-dining operation. IHOP, with servers and cooks, is a labor-intensive business. At the time he sold last year, Womack had 16 restaurants and more than 1,000 employees.

“We felt that environment was not the place to be for the next 10 to 20 years,” he said.

Womack now owns some Popeyes chicken franchises in Kansas City. Nevertheless, Obamacare still remains a problem, as he explained to the Daily Signal:

His insurance provider boosted rates by 40 percent in one year, forcing him to cut back on coverage.

He offered the plan to all 180 employees. Only two of the 140 hourly workers signed up.

“For our industry, the employer mandate doesn’t work,” Womack told me. “You’re talking about a large percentage of people who are not inclined to buy the insurance coverage. They looked at how much it cost and they’re not buying it.”

Womack described these employees as “younger people who are looking for part-time work.” Yet as a result of offering everyone insurance, his previously insured managers found themselves paying more for worse coverage.

“We had very generous health insurance benefits for our managers and we covered a substantial amount for dependents,” he said. “That’s all going to have to change so we can offer the same thing to everyone. We can’t afford to offer dependent coverage to our entire workforce. So our managers will actually take a hit in terms of the coverage they get.”

For other businesses dealing with the employer mandate, Obamacare has meant massive record-keeping costs:

Brad Mete estimates his staffing company, Affinity Resources, will spend $100,000 this year on record-keeping and filing documents with the government. He's hired two extra staffers and is spending more on services from its human resources provider.

The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers' hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance. Many small businesses don't have the human resources departments or computer systems that large companies have, making it harder to handle the paperwork. On average, complying with the law costs small businesses more than $15,000 a year, according to a survey released a year ago by the National Small Business Association.

"It's a horrible hassle," says Mete, managing partner of the Miami-based company.  

This illustrates the problem Katie Mahoney, Executive Director for Health Policy at the U.S. Chamber, told the House Ways and Means Committee last year, “First and foremost, the greatest complaint we hear from our members is about the extraordinary expense of complying with the reporting requirements.” The unintended consequence is “businesses must redirect resources to report on the coverage they offer, rather than use those resources to pay for a greater portion of the cost of that coverage,” and in extreme cases, the “expense of these reporting requirements” may push “employers to stop offering coverage all together.”

One way to ease the cost and record-keeping burden of the health care law on employers is by restoring the 40-hour workweek. The House passed a bipartisan bill in January, and it’s awaiting a Senate vote. Reinstating the 40-hour work week would be a critical step in helping businesses better manage the consequences of Obamacare’s new mandates.

https://www.uschamber.com/blog/ihop-owner-gets-pancaked-obamacare

Reid: Nope, I Have No Regrets Calling Mitt Romney a Tax Cheat

What an Immoral Piece of Crap!  Not even apologetic for lying! These Liberals Lie on anything and the Liberals drool  when they fart!  What a bunch of Mindless Liberal Numb nuts!

The ends always justify the means.

Asked in a recent interview if he had any “regrets” about accusing 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes for ten years during the homestretch of the campaign, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) essentially shrugged his shoulders.

“He didn’t win, did he?” he intoned.

The Washington Free Beacon captured the video:

We knew he was lying, of course, and the Romney campaign ensured in good timeeveryone else would, too. But such a smug and remorseless answer astonishes even me.

Or does it?

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Senator.

UPDATE: Watch the full clip here.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2015/03/31/harry-reid-n1978847

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/04/01/republicans_don_t_know_how_to_handle_lies_and_smears_like_the_one_dingy_harry_pulled_on_mitt_romney

http://dailysurge.com/2015/03/harry-reid-defends-lying-about-mitt-romney-not-paying-taxes-he-didnt-win-did-he/

EXCELLENT! Despite Criticism, Arkansas Passes Religious Freedom Law Today!!

Excellent example of the Left wing stupidity! Hyped up anger over Indy law (something sponsored by Schumer and signed by Clinton)! Now anger and silence when Arkansas passes the bill!

The bill was passed today even after hundreds of left-wing protesters filled the state capitol to try and force the legislature to dump the bill.

Arkansas lawmakers have given final approval to a religious-freedom bill that has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who say it opens the door to state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The House voted Tuesday to approve the measure, which prohibits the state and local governments from infringing on a person’s religious beliefs without a “compelling” interest. The measure now heads to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has said he will sign it into law.

If enacted, the move will make Arkansas the second state to enact such a law this year. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a similar bill last week, and 19 other states have comparable measures on the books.

We’ll see if Ark. Gov. Hutchinson has the guts to sign this into law.

http://rightwingnews.com/democrats/excellent-despite-criticism-arkansas-passes-religious-freedom-law-today/

http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/30/the-aclus-hypocritical-defense-of-laws-that-violate-religious-liberty/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thf03312015ACLU

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/selective_outrage_over_religious_freedom.html

A Few more Facebook Post

I joined Sean Hannity last night to discuss ‪#‎HillaryClinton‬'s email scandal. I'm a believer - sooner or later the truth comes out.

I joined Sean Hannity last night to discuss #HillaryClinton's email scandal. I'm a believer - sooner or later the truth comes out. Take a look...
Posted by Judge Jeanine Pirro on Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The Gestapo is alive and well in Obama’s America

Hi. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. Barack Obama is going rogue. By every metric, the Obama economy is melting down. We are seeing the beginning stages of another recession, at best, or a total economic meltdown, at worst.

At the moment, there are no decent-paying jobs in America. Obama has opened the border and given amnesty to at least 5 million illegal aliens already in the country, thereby putting them in competition with working-class and middle-class Americans.

Think I’m wrong? Did you know the government is giving businesses a $3,000 incentive to hire illegals over native-born Americans?

Did you know cities are hiring noncitizens (and even illegal aliens given amnesty by Obama) as policemen? All you need is a work permit. Someone in America illegally can wear a badge and enforce the law against you. Don’t believe me? Ask USA Today.

Did you think the border crisis was over? Obama’s amnesty has encouraged a new wave of poverty-stricken illegals at the border.

And in a bankrupt nation with more than $18 trillion in debt, Obama has used amnesty to give illegals access to food stamps, free healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, earned income tax credits. And by issuing drivers’ licenses and Social Security cards, they will be able to vote immediately (because States don’t have the technology to tell the difference between a legal citizen or a noncitizen).

The Obamacare fiasco gets worse by the day. The middle class is being bankrupted by skyrocketing increases in their health insurance premiums; hospitals are being bankrupted by the flood of illegal aliens accessing services; and the economy will drown in the new debt caused by Obamacare.

Obama’s claim that ISIS is on the run is a proven fraud, ripped bare by America’s embarrassing military withdrawl from Yemen. 

Obama is going nuclear in his hatred for Bibi Netanyahu and Israel, force-feeding the world a weak nuclear agreement with Iran that is so bad, even France is fighting for stronger sanctions. Meanwhile, Obama threatens to become the first president in history to abandon Israel at the United Nations. 

But I haven’t gotten to the bad part yet. Is it possible the terrible news about the economy, the border, ISIS and Israel is all just a distraction? Because the really important news is that Obama has created a modern-day version of “the Gestapo.”

The Obama government is using an initiative called “Operation Chokepoint” to force legal businesses it doesn’t like out of business, by threatening and intimidating banks and credit card processors.

At the same time, the Obama government is urging banks to call the police to report citizens who withdraw $5,000 or more from their own bank accounts. Yes, I said banks are urged to call the police when you withdraw your own money.

This comes at the same time that FEMA announced it will no longer provide FEMA disaster relief funds to states whose governors deny “climate change.” 

And let’s not forget Obama used an FCC party-line vote to take over the Internet and institute sweeping new changes to a system that is working perfectly as the form of communication for most Americans.

Obama’s first goal is clearly massive new taxes on Internet usage, just another way to destroy the middle class and redistribute income. But is his real goal is controlling communications on the Internet — specifically the anti-Obama criticism and anti-government message so prevalent on the Internet.

But let’s circle back to the most Gestapo-like Obama initiative ever. It’s called “Operation Chokepoint.” This is your government’s attempt to put morality controls (just like those in Iran) on the American public by shutting down gun stores, precious metals companies, casinos, tobacco distributors, telemarketers and short-term money lenders.

How can they close legal businesses you ask? By threatening and intimidating banks and credit card processors to close accounts for businesses the government doesn’t like. Just like an Iranian ayatollah, if Obama doesn’t like your business, he will “choke off” your ability to stay in business. Hence the name, “Operation Chokepoint.”

Never forget Obama has been on a six-year-long relentless crusade to raise our taxes and take away our tax deduction for charitable donations, choking off contributions to churches. Yes, Obama is trying to “choke off” the funding that keeps churches in business, too.

Why is this happening? First, because Obama despises capitalism. He needs to put prosperous businesses out of business. By murdering the middle class’ ability to prosper, he creates his utopia of equality (i.e., “shared misery”), making everyone dependent on government in a classless, socialist society. Think Cuba and Venezuela.

Second, there is an obvious reason Obama hates these particular industries. The subtitle of my 2009 book, “The Conscience of a Libertarian,” says it all. The subtitle was “Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold, Gambling & Tax Cuts.” Is it a coincidence that virtually every item I mentioned is under attack?

The businesses on the list of “Operation Chokepoint” are all dominated by people that Obama would describe as capitalists, patriots, conservatives, Tea Partiers, Christians and supporters of the Constitution. Not coincidently, those are the same groups targeted by Obama in the IRS scandal. 

And then, of course, if Obama can’t close your business or “choke off” your ability to prosper, he can force banks to call the police if you dare to withdraw money from your own account.

Folks, this is eerily reminiscent of the Gestapo, or the Soviet KGB, or the East German Stasi. Is this the America you want? The NSA spying on your every move, the federal government in charge of your healthcare and now your free speech on the Internet, the IRS auditing enemies and critics of the government, the federal government forcing legal businesses they deem “unacceptable” out of business, and banks spying on their own customers and being forced to call the police when customers withdraw too much of their own money.

Yes, under Barack Hussein Obama, the Gestapo is alive and well in theformer “Land of the Free.”

I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. See you next week. God bless America.

 http://personalliberty.com/the-gestapo-is-alive-and-well-in-obamas-america/

The Fed's Startling Student Debt Numbers That Every Young Person Should See

Just think; This regime including Warren and Durbin said that these kids were stupid and did not know what they were getting into when they signed the dotted line. They are going to college. They know what they are doing. No way in Hell should someone else help pay for their loans (socialism). 

What I’m about to tell you is not my own opinion or even analysis. It’s original data that comes from the United States Federal Reserve and national credit bureaus.

1. 40 million Americans are now in debt because of their university education, and on average borrowers have four loans with a total balance of $29,000.
2. According to the Fed, “Student loans have the highest delinquency rate of any form of household credit, having surpassed credit cards in 2012.”
3. Since 2010, student debt has been the second largest category of personal debt, just after a home mortgage.
4. The delinquency rate for student loans is now hovering near an all-time high since they started collecting data 12 years ago.
5. Only 37% of total students loan balances are currently in repayment and not delinquent.

The rest—nearly 2 out of 3—are either behind on payments, in all-out default, or have entered some sort of deferral program to delay making payments, with a small percentage still in school.

It’s pretty obvious that this is a giant, unsustainable bubble (more on this below). But even more important are the personal implications.

University graduates now matriculate with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

Debt is another form of servitude. Like medieval serfs, debt keeps people tied to jobs they dislike in places they don’t want to be working for bosses they hate doing things that make them feel unfulfilled.

Debt makes it very difficult to walk away and start fresh.

In fact, ‘starting fresh’ is almost legally impossible when it comes to student debt. Even in US bankruptcy court, student debt cannot be discharged in almost all cases.

It is an albatross that hangs over you for a decade or more if you do make the payments, and it follows you around for the rest of your life if you do not.

(I’m not suggesting anyone default on what they owed—simply pointing out that nearly every other form of debt can be discharged EXCEPT for student debt.)

This kind of debt has a huge impact on people’s lives.

Again, according to the Federal Reserve, “[G]rowing student debt has contributed to the recent decline in the homeownership rate and to the sharp increase in parental co-residence among millennials.”

So the Fed’s own analysis shows that student debt is a cause for people in their 20s and 30s to live at home with their parents. Amazing.

This certainly hollows out the argument that a university degree is a one-way ticket to a higher salary, brighter future, and better standard of living.

Look, I’m not going to try to tell you that a university education is worthless or a cruel joke.

There are clearly both tangible and intangible benefits to completing a four-year degree, especially for vocations in science, medicine, etc.

But let’s be honest—many kids end up at university by default. They don’t know what they want to study. They don’t know ‘what they want to do’.

They’re just sort of expected to enroll, attend, major in something, and graduate.

Much of this is done merely to please other people or satisfy a social expectation without any real sense of whether the path they’ve chosen at that time is the right one.

Modern university education, in fact, is based on the premise that an 18-year old kid can make up his/her mind about what s/he wants to do in life.

But how can they really know what they want to do in life without first having some exposure to life itself? How can anyone know?

Most students grow up living at home with their parents. They graduate from high school. And they go off to college pressed to make some grand life decision without ever having dipped a toe in the world to get a sense of the infinite options.

From this perspective, spending four to five years discussing theory at such a formative age can be terribly counterproductive.

Subsequently graduating with an enslaving level of student debt can make the experience borderline destructive.

Again, it’s not to say that university has no benefit.

The question is whether it’s worth the cost at that particular time, i.e. whether entire generations should be forced into a cookie-cutter path where everyone spends ages 18-22 in university, graduates with a boatload of debt, starts a career in whichever industry is willing to hire them, and ultimately begins paying taxes.

This route takes away all the choice… the ability to live life deliberately.

It’s how people ‘end up’ doing what they do by default, instead of finding their professional passion and life’s calling.

Most people give up the choice. And it all starts with debt.

It didn’t used to be this way.

Long ago, people actually went to university to learn. That was the goal.

Today we’re told that it’s a necessary stepping stone for social and financial success.

Curious how the data demonstrates the exact opposite.

Like many of our prevailing social constructs, this education system is on the way out.

Just like our unsustainable monetary system in which we award totalitarian control of our money supply to unelected bureaucrats who conjure trillions out of thin air in their sole discretion…

… just like our unsustainable banking system in which commercial banks hold just a tiny fraction of their customer deposits and then gamble away the rest of it…

… and just like our political system in which a government that’s $60 trillion in debt continues to waste money with wanton abandon…

… this education system is unsustainable.

It’s just as unsustainable to expect a 22-year old to enter the world with uncertain prospects and tens of thousand of dollars of debt.

And, like our monetary, banking and political systems, it’s time for a reset.

 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-30/feds-startling-student-numbers-every-young-person-should-see

Bowe Bergdahl and Our Leaders’ Lost Honor

Desertion is a very old story in the history of armies and armed conflict. Soldiers deserted from the Continental Army, from the Union Army, from the American armies in World War I and World War II — yet those armies fought on, fought well, and prevailed. An army can survive desertion, so to hear that Bowe Bergdahl has been charged with desertion hardly represents an existential crisis for the military or its character. In fact, it is to the Army’s credit that it has charged Bergdahl in the face of prevailing political winds.

Much more serious than Bergdahl’s desertion is our commander-in-chief’s decision to hand the enemy a victory to retrieve a likely deserter, compounded by a decision to celebrate this serious defeat at the White House, and then to clumsily attempt to cover their political tracks by trotting out Susan Rice to deceive the public about Bergdahl’s service record. This is dishonor, from the highest levels of American leadership. And that kind of dishonor is much more grave, much more difficult to absorb and overcome than any given soldier’s decision to desert.

Our culture — especially our military culture — is remarkably strong. It can (and has) withstood incompetent and corrupt leadership. It can (and has) faced and overcome dishonor at every level of leadership. It can and will withstand and survive the Obama administration’s grotesque incompetence, dishonesty, and political opportunism. However, if the Obama administration is in fact setting an enduring precedent for American leadership, where leaders hand our enemies military victories to score political points at home, where leaders lie to the public to conceal those mistakes and confuse the public about the facts, and then wax indignant when called on those actions, then our culture — including our military culture — will fray and crack at a fundamental level.

This article is crossposted on National Review.

http://aclj.org/american-heritage/bowe-bergdahl-and-our-leaders-lost-honor?utm_content=sf37263431&utm_medium=spredfast&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=Informational&sf37263431=1

Obama's Free Community College Plan Will Mostly Help the Affluent

If you’ve followed the news recently, you’ve heard about President Obama’s proposal to make community colleges free for students who would like to attend them. With a now Republican controlled House and Senate, the proposal has little chance of passing, and Obama knows this. But it’ll certainly be a decent political investment.

What better way to paint Republicans in a negative light by pointing out how they shot down a proposal to help students further their education? With headlines about mounting student debt and the unaffordability of college commonplace, there will certainly be the perception that Obama’s proposal would help the lower and middle class -- but the surprising fact is that his proposal, like most entitlements aimed at helping the poor, is mostly an entitlement for the well-to-do. Before fully diving into how such a proposal would benefit only the wealthier stratum, let’s first evaluate some of the other arguments for and against the proposal.

Conservative critics were quick to point out that “free” community college isn’t free, as it’ll cost $60 billion to fund over the next decade, or, roughly $6 billion a year on average. Of all the reasons to oppose the proposal, the $6 billion annual cost is one of the weaker. Six billion dollars certainly is an enormous sum -- it’s about double the net worth of the entire cast of ABC’s Shark Tank. Six billion dollars only becomes miniscule when it’s being compared against what the government already spends. The Federal government alone spent $3.5 trillion in 2014 -- or $9.59 billion a day on average. So the community college proposal only actually costs what the Federal government spends in 15 hours at current levels of spending (though this isn’t meant to defend the current size of our Federal government).

The debate should instead be over whether or not this six billion dollars is justified spending or wasteful. It should be easy to anticipate some of the arguments that the spending is justified -- that it’ll build human capital, create opportunity for the disadvantaged who can’t afford college, and so on. Some might even go as far to say that since it will enable people to earn higher incomes, this program may “pay for itself.” Apparently unnoticed is the fact that there already is a surplus of college students relative to the number of college graduates the economy needs. If we define college as being worth attending based on whether or not a graduate is employed in a job that required a college degree, then roughly half of what we’re already spending on college is waste! And as for the claim that free community college would pay for itself, We Are Capitalists has a great piece showing how the math doesn’t add up. 

We often hear about a shortage of STEM graduates in the US, but such problems are only exacerbated in nations that guarantee free higher education. Some degrees in the liberal arts are often referred to as “luxury degrees,” meaning that they’re obtained because the subjects are enjoyable to the person majoring in them, not because the student expects to be employed in a specific field with a degree. Now, far too many students today graduate in “useless” fields, but since most bear part of or all of the financial cost, it at least reduces the number of students willing to graduate in fields that don’t yield a specific job. In other words, students are more willing to seek a return on investment on college when they have bear some of the cost

There’s also evidence that students are much more attentive to their studies when they have “skin in the game” (i.e., they’re bearing some of the cost). Obama’s proposal does set GPA requirements to be eligible for a free education, but it’s an abysmally low 2.5, or a C+ average. The average GPA in the major with the lowest average GPA, Chemistry, is a 2.78 -- higher than what Obama’s plan requires a student to maintain.

The biggest argument one can make against Obama’s proposal in particular is this: community college already is free, or almost free for most students. For the years 2013-14, the American Association of Community Colleges reports that the average community college had annual tuition of $3,260, and the College Board found the amount of be almost identical.  

So how does a student offset this cost? Let’s first start with students whose parents have income and qualify for tax credits.  The American Opportunity Tax credit gives a $2,500 credit to any college student who earns below $80,000, or is married and has joint-income below $160,000.  The credit is gradually phased out for incomes above $160,000. While the source doesn’t mention this specifically, a student should have no trouble filing for the credit as long as his household income falls below $160,000 a year, as he can have a parent claim that credit and then pass it onto him. 

Now obviously, if a student or his family has no income, or little income, they can’t exactly take advantage of a tax credit when they pay little in income tax to begin with. But those students can take advantage of Pell Grants, which have a maximum value of $5,500 a year. Calculating eligibility for a Pell Grant is a bit more complicated than just defining an amount of income one must earn less than, as the Grant takes into account how much money a family has to spend on their child’s education, the cost of the institution they attend, and other factors. Most students who currently attend community college on a Pell Grant come from lower-middle class and poor backgrounds.

One third of the eight million students receiving a Pell Grant are attending a community college. To put into perspective how much of community college’s costs are already borne by the taxpayer rather than the student, less than thirty cents of every dollar a community college received in revenue from 2013-14 was in the form of tuition and fees. It was difficult to find information on what the value of the Grant is for the average community college student receiving one was nationwide. In the state of Pennsylvania, that value was $3,179 in 2011-12 among their 14 community colleges. According to the College Board, the average value of a Pell Grant received among all institutions during the same time was $3,685.

In fact it seems that the Pell Grant is the poor man’s ticket to a free community college education, while the American Opportunity Tax Credit is the middle class man’s path. So who does this leave falling through the cracks, unable to receive a heavily discounted or free community college education? Those from households earning above $160,000 -- who should be more than able to afford a community college education on their own. It thus seems that free community college can’t be sold as an entitlement to help the lower class, it is in fact yet another entitlement for the affluent among us.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/obamas_free_community_college_plan_will_mostly_help_the_affluent_.html#ixzz3VulPwv7x
 

Obama's Mental Health: A Checklist

Wow!

If anyone had doubts about the mental health of the president and some of the other more visible people within the Obama administration, there can be doubts no longer. In the past few days Yemen has further erupted into explosive chaos and the long-known but finally admitted facts of Bowe Bergdahl's desertion were announced.  But his spokespersons, Josh Earnest, Marie Harf, and Jen Psaki, with blank, straight faces, still doggedly maintain that that Yemen is a "counterterrorism success" and that turning over five Taliban terrorists of the Taliban's choosing in exchange for Bergdahl was a wise and wonderful plan. 

Like a schoolyard bully, the president continues to find treacherous ways to punish Bibi Netanyahu and Israel in increasingly vicious ways. He has leaked details of Israel's nuclear program, threatened to circumvent Congress on the Iran deal by going to the UN, and threatened to withhold from Israel needed supplies for its self-defense. Denis McDonough spoke at J-Street and called for, "an end to the occupation," a wholly inaccurate term for Israel's existence and present boundaries. Jews around the world have not known such peril since the 1930s.

Many people have written about the president's narcissism. Some have suggested that he may be a sociopath. There is a checklist, developed by Dr. Robert D. Hare in the 1970s and used around the world to diagnose psychopathy. Dr. Hare would likely admit that it is not perfect but it is widely used in psychiatric settings and prisons to determine if an inmate is safe for release.  It may be useful in assessing our president and the people with whom he has surrounded himself.

"Dr. Hare’s test is simple: a list of 20 criteria, each given a score of 0 (if it doesn’t apply to the person), 1 (if it partially applies) or 2 (if it fully applies). The list in full is: glibness and superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, cunning/manipulative, lack of remorse, emotional shallowness, callousness and lack of empathy, unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions, a tendency to boredom, a parasitic lifestyle, a lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of behavioural control, behavioural problems in early life, juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility, a history of “revocation of conditional release” (ie. broken parole), multiple marriages, and promiscuous sexual behaviour. A pure, prototypical psychopath would score 40. A score of 30 or more qualifies for a diagnosis of psychopathy." "Psychopaths:  How to Spot One" Tom Chivers, Telegraph, April 6, 2014)  

Here is Dr. Hare's official checklist:  

 Mr. Obama, as well as a number of people is his orbit (David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrrett, John Kerry, Michelle Obama), would easily score a 2 on each of the four traits listed in Factor 1. For obvious reasons, psychopaths find their ways to the top and once there wreak havoc. In Factor 2, Mr. Obama and his wife would certainly score a 2 on "parasitic lifestyle," and the president does suffer from a "lack of realistic long-term goals". (Too many examples to list but Iran is and will always be an enemy!) He may score a 1 or 2 on "Impulsivity" when one considers his many off the cuff remarks that have so often created problems ("57 states," "bitter clingers," "tell Vlad I'll have more flexibility after my reelection," etc.  There are numerous websites devoted to "Obamisms," his impulsive gaffes spoken when he goes off teleprompter.)

In Facet 2, he would score a 2 on each of the four items. The items in Facet 4 are not so obviously known except from what he wrote in his own autobiographies in which he admitted having used marijuana and cocaine and to being a slacker in high school. His academic records have never been released to the public. If they were exemplary, they would have been.  So it is safe to assume they were mediocre.

While few may be psychiatrists, the American people have had six years, far more than the three hours recommended, to observe President Obama. His score would easily be between 24 and 28. This is the man whom Americans twice elected to the presidency. And that is why the entire world is erupting in violence, confused and dangerous, more dangerous than at any time since the end of WWII. This man who lies pathologically and feels no empathy (again, too many examples to list but his reactions to the murders of Christopher Stevens and James Foley are indicative), has disdain for America and has set out to do the nation harm as surely as a psychopathic murderer sets out to kill an innocent human being. And he does it all without breaking a sweat or feeling an iota of responsibility or guilt.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/obamas_mental_health_a_checklist.html#ixzz3VukcBKOH 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/03/is_a_stressed_out_obama_turning_to_drink.html 

Obama Creates Chaos and Calls it 'Peace'

President Obama has surrendered to Iran’s fanatical thirst for nukes, and now all of Iran’s Muslim enemies are going to war, because they understand the mullahs a lot better than Obama does.

A huge regional war is breaking out between the two biggest enemies in Islam, the Sunnis and Shi’ites. This war has its roots in Ayatollah Khomeini, Jimmy Carter’s favorite Islamofascist “spiritual leader,” who was allowed to take over the 70 million people of Iran by the terminally delusional Carter regime.

But our guy Obama has made everything worse, by siding with the two most extreme and murderous forces in the region, the mullahs of Iran on the Shi’ite side, and the Muslim Brotherhood on the Sunni side.

In this mess you need a scorecard. Here's one.

1) Saudi Arabia is the center of worldwide Islam. It’s run by a radical Sunni  theocracy that sends hate preachers all over the world, who tell their followers that violent jihad against the West will win them a place in Paradise. That’s why we get Muslims blowing themselves all over the world, taking with them as many infidels as possible. 

SCORE: Winner: Sunni War Priests. Obama zero.

2) Iran is the biggest 1000-year enemy of the Saudis. But eighty percent of Muslims worldwide are Sunnis, and follow the Saudi line. Iran wants to conquer the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from the Saudis.

SCORE: Winner: Iranian and Sunni war priests. Obama zero.

3) From the beginning of Obamanismo, the U.S. has tried to destabilize Egypt, Syria, Israel, Libya, and a few other odds and ends. Egypt revolted against Obama’s friends of the Muslim Brotherhood, so Obama scored 0 there. Libya fell apart into civil war when NATO criminally bombed a regime that did not threaten their interests in the least.

SCORE: Winner: Al Qaida in the Maghreb. Obama zero.

4) Syria fell apart due to Obama’s much hyped-up “Arab Spring,” with the Alawite Assad fighting even more evil Sunni thugs like Al Nusrah and finally ISIS. Obama has tried over and over again to overthrow Assad, with a big backlash, so that now Syria is the biggest horror story on the planet, with more than 200,000 dead and millions of refugees.

SCORE: Winner: Iran, which now has troops in Syria, plus its obedient war party Hizb’allah. Obama, zero.

5) Iran has sent high officers to spy out the land all the way to the Golan Heights, where Israel bombed a dozen of them to death.

SCORE: Israel vs. Iran – a tie so far. Obama zero.

6) In return for Iranian aggression --- made much worse by Obama’s surrender  on Iranian nukes --- the Saudis can call on the following allied armies, navies, and air forces:

A) On the Arabian Peninsula, all the Gulf sheikhdoms except Qatar.
B) The large and technically advanced armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan.
C) The militant Sunni tribes of Iraq and Syria.

Now recall the strategic situation. Iran has been enabled by the United States from Jimmy Carter to Obama to encircle and threaten Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. By controlling the choke point of the Gulf, Iran can close off tanker traffic at will. But now an Iranian proxy tribe, the Houthis, has taken Obama and the Saudis by complete surprise; they are close to choking off the Red Sea ports of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

SCORE: Winner: Iran. Obama zero.

7) Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies are now going to war by sending naval vessels to the mouth of the Red Sea and bombarding the Houthis with several different Arab air forces allied to the Saudis.

Bottom line: While Obama and the Euroleft have focused idiotically on Israel and the fictional Palestinians (who are Arabs under a different name to fool the suckers), Iran has been quietly advancing a huge strategic pincer movement through Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Yemen is the southern end of the strategic pincer.SCORE: Unknown. Chances are that the Sunni armies will beat smaller Iranian and proxy forces at the mouth of the Red Sea. But war is unpredictable.

Iran has just threatened to invade Jordan, and of course Israel is their biggest hate object over decades of media propaganda in the Arab Middle East and Europe. But now the Sunnis need help from Israel, especially if this thing goes nuclear, so they are making nice.

SCORE: Arab-Israeli peace WINS, in spite of Obama. Obama has lost any credibility he ever had in the region, so he scores… zero.

Meanwhile, Our Hero has ordered USAF ground-support to both sides of the great Muslim divide, the Iranians in Iraq, and their deadly enemies the Saudis in Yemen.

Senator Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was quoted saying “We’re totally out… Yemen is going to be [an] absolute failure of our foreign policy.”

You can say that for the rest of Obama’s meddling, too. 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/obama_creates_chaos_and_calls_it_peace.html#ixzz3VuipHDpp
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